Maia's Magickal Mates [The Double R 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) (13 page)

“That’s a given.”

“Not a good way to start my first day of work.”

“I’ll help you through it.”

“You always do.”

“Here, take these.” Thayne popped the two pills into his brother’s mouth as Cade raised up on one elbow to sip water from the cup Thayne held to his lips. Thayne watched as his brother washed the pills down. He crushed the cup and tossed it across the room into the trash basket.

“Two points!” Cade pumped a fist and collapsed back against the stack of pillows.

Thayne stood and patted his brother’s shoulder, preparing to leave when Cade caught his wrist again, gripping much more firmly than before and fixing him with a look of intense desperation. “What is it, Cade?”

“I spoke with Mom and Dad last night.”

“Cade—”

“I know you think I’m drunk and I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

“I don’t think that.” Well, he did, but he also didn’t want Cade to bring their parents up. He was unwilling to experience the pain of rehashing their improbable, farfetched deaths even though he wasn’t sure why his brother had brought them up or what he was about to say. He sighed, his curiosity winning out. “So, what did they say?”

“You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

“Cade, this is me you’re talking to, the telepathic empath.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Cade laughed. “Well, I met them in the Summerland. It was so beautiful, just like all the descriptions in your and Mom and Dad’s books. All vivid colors, peace, and tranquility.”

Thayne swallowed hard listening to his brother, heart pounding at the faith and sincerity he heard in Cade’s voice. His brother had never been particularly spiritual. However, hearing the awe and wonder in his voice, the conviction, touched something deep in Thayne. He hadn’t thought Cade paid attention to anything he and their parents spouted about Wicca, much less that he read any of their books on the subject.

“They said she’s The One, Thayne.”

He had a bad feeling about what Cade meant but asked anyway. “She who?”

“Our Little Maia. They said evil’s coming to our door and that we have to protect each other and keep her safe.

“She belongs to us, Thayne. Both of us. She’s ours.”

She belongs to us.

Thayne frowned at the wording and wondered exactly what his brother, or more to the point, their parents had meant by that.

Not to mention the whole evil-coming-to-their-door statement.

What the hell?

Cade squeezed his wrist again. “You believe me, don’t you?”

Thayne covered the hand gripping his wrist. “I believe you.”

Goddess knew what it all meant, but he did believe Cade, every word.

Thayne just didn’t know what he was supposed to do about it.

Maia decided to go back downstairs rather than wait in the hall. She wanted to give the brothers their privacy but also needed the space to sort through her jumbled emotions.

She’d had second thoughts about hanging around to help Thayne undress Cade, curious to see if Cade looked as delicious out of his clothes as he did in them, but how would that have appeared, her getting all worked up over Cade with Thayne,
her date
, right there in the room?

Not too good, she thought.

She’d had all she could deal with keeping her composure being in a bedroom with both of them, despite Cade’s indisposition. She found both Thayne and Cade attractive, and she wanted both of them. She so didn’t find this situation ideal.

She wondered what they would say if she approached them with the proposal of not only a ménage a trois but the contention that all three of them being together was somehow fated.

They’d think she was a greedy witch who just wanted to have her cake and eat it, too.

She might have thought this same thing if two men had approached her with some malarkey about Fate just to get her into bed with both of them at the same time. At least she might have thought it malarkey before her two sisters had each found their soul mates in not one man but two. She might have thought the whole Fated ménage a trois malarkey if she hadn’t had a vision of the three of them—her, Cade, and Thayne—together.

“Sorry I took so long.”

Maia almost leaped out of her skin when Thayne slid a hand up her back to gently caress her bare shoulder. She had been so wrapped up in her thoughts she couldn’t stop the shudder going through her body at his sudden appearance.

Thayne noticed her shivering and wrapped both his arms around her from behind, drawing her close. “Cold?”

“A little.” She closed her eyes and leaned back against him for a moment. He felt so good, so strong…and so aroused.

Maia’s eyes flew open. She had to get out of there now. She couldn’t put herself through anymore torture tonight or let him start something that she couldn’t finish. Except that when she tried to pull away, Thayne held her to him, bent his head, and nuzzled her throat.

His lips caressed her, warm breath raising goose bumps on her skin, so irresistible.

“Stay the night,” he murmured.

“I shouldn’t.”

“Why? Because of what happened with Cade?”

“That’s part of it.” She turned around in his arms and curved her arms around his trim waist as she tilted her head back to look into his eyes. That was a big mistake, since she could practically drown in their vibrant blue depths and be persuaded to do anything, even something that she knew wasn’t good for her. At least it wasn’t good for her now. Later, once they worked everything out,
if
they worked everything out, who knew? “I should get home.”

Thayne nodded. “I understand.”

“You do?” Not only was she shocked, but she felt slightly affronted at his easy acquiescence.
She
barely understood why she wanted to go home, why she
needed
to, not when she was sure that Thayne was hers for the taking. She just felt like she would be cheating on Cade if she began something with Thayne that didn’t include his brother.

How sick did that make her?

“I think I do.” Thayne nodded. “Mood’s been killed.”

“Something like that.” Although she had no doubt that they could rekindle it with very little effort. She was halfway there already. The crotch of her panties was soaked from just the memory of their earlier aborted coupling. Her clit was still swollen with the memory of how his lips had felt against it, and her pussy throbbed with the recollection of how his tongue had felt inside her.

“I’ll walk you out to your car.”

“Okay.”

He slid his hands from her waist and caught her by a hand to lead her to the front door and outside to her car in the driveway.

They stood by the driver’s-side door for an instant that might have been on its way to being awkward until Thayne pulled her into his arms, leaned in, and gave her a kiss on the lips.

Maia thought it would be a short and sweet good night kiss, but he surprised her when he thrust in his tongue to stroke hers and slid his hands down to her ass to pull her up against him.

Wow, he was full of surprises tonight. He was obviously into torture, too.

Thayne’s erection ignited all the nerve endings in her pussy when he pressed himself against her slit and sensually rocked his hips from side to side.

Maia’s clit pulsed in response, and she panted against his mouth right before Thayne pulled away.

He stared at her for a long moment, smoothing her shoulder-length hair away from her face and gently tucking the strands behind her ears.

Maia was so mesmerized by his mellowness it took her a minute to realize he’d opened the car door for her. She turned from him to get into the car, and once she was inside and comfortably belted in her seat, he closed the door.

She keyed the ignition but didn’t pull away immediately as Thayne got down on his haunches and tapped the closed window. Maia lowered it with the power button, and Thayne rested his folded arms on the door and leaned in for another kiss, this one a lot chaster and less mind-altering than the last, thank Goddess. She did have to drive after all.

“I’ll call you,” he said.

“I’m looking forward to it.”

“Dream about me.”

Maia already knew that she would.

She would dream about both of them.

* * * *

Maia wasn’t usually so susceptible to the power of suggestion. After the wringer the Malloy brothers had taken her emotions and body through yesterday, however, her defenses were down, and damned if she didn’t wake up the next morning inelegantly humping her mattress and tangled in her bedcovers, the victim of a wet dream of staggering proportions.

She sighed and rolled to her side to glance at her bedside clock. The red digits glared the early hour at her, much earlier than she normally got up, but what the hell.

Maia sat up, threw her legs over the side of the bed, and placed her feet on the rich burgundy carpet in her bedroom.

She thought twice about getting dressed and going down to have breakfast with all the early risers of the house, which was just about everyone. She didn’t, however, want to get ribbed by her sisters and their men if she could help it. She knew she’d have to face the music sooner or later with everyone so eager to pair her off with the eligible-bachelor doctor, but she decided to put it off for as long as possible.

Instead, Maia got up and grabbed her sketch pad and one of her charcoal pencils. She curled up with her legs folded beneath her in the large, overstuffed suede chair in her room.

How to recapture the lucid dream that she had just woken up from?

She closed her eyes, gasping in shock at the images that immediately played across the screen in her mind. The wanton vision of herself stretched out on a bed—head pressed back against the pillow, neck arched, lips slightly parted in the throes of passion as Thayne and Cade each worked to bring her to orgasm with their hands and mouths—shocked Maia even more.

In the real world, Maia panted, instantly wet as she watched Cade in her dream, poised between her spread thighs, pumping two fingers in and out of her pussy while he licked and sucked her clitoris. Meanwhile, Thayne worked further north, caressing her breasts and licking and nibbling each turgid nipple in turn.

Maia moaned, eyes flying open as she suddenly became aware of her pencil flying across the sketch pad in her lap. She looked down at what she had so far drawn and gasped at the explicitly erotic images that greeted her. Despite the tangle of limbs and the athletic position of the three bodies depicted, Maia had outlined the features of the three participants so clearly that anyone who knew her, Thayne, or Cade would recognize them.

She stared at her work for a long time, admiring the beauty of the three subjects, the elegance of their tangled limbs, the obvious pleasure on their faces.

Is this what she looked like when she orgasmed? Is this what she
would
look like when Thayne and Cade brought her to completion?

The pencil started whirring and flying across the page again, almost of its own volition as Maia made several finishing strokes to polish the piece before writing the title—like there was any question what it depicted—across the top and her first name and the date in her trademark calligraphic script in the right-hand corner at the bottom.

She held it up before her, examining it from various angles, searching for any flaws. Her sister Desiree always told Maia she was her own worst critic, but she strangely couldn’t find one thing wrong with
Ménage a Trois
. It was perfect—perfectly beautiful, perfectly compelling, and perfectly raw—her best work by far, if she did say so herself.

When she’d first come to the ranch she had gotten a lot of inspiration from the nature around her, miles and miles of rich, untouched grassland and trees and rugged mountains as far as the eyes could see. All of it had revitalized a creative pursuit that she had all but abandoned before coming out to Colorado with her sister and mother.

Besides her art, other areas of her life had undergone drastic changes. She had grown to love country living, in fact now preferred it over the city, and reveled in the activities she had taken up on the ranch since she’d moved to The Double R. She’d become an adept horsewoman, helping Jax and the other cowboys with teaching the guests’ children the finer points of riding, transferring her love of the pastime to them.

The life she led on the ranch, but most of all her meeting Thayne and Cade, reinforced the decision she had made two years ago to come out here. Obviously she had needed the change and a new perspective on her life.

She just hadn’t expected “new” to be so drastic where her love life was concerned.

Before moving to Colorado, Maia thought herself relatively liberal.

Desiree thought she was loose because Maia had had more than a few partners before her thirtieth birthday. Maia never let on that it was always more than just sex for her or that she’d fallen for each and every partner with all her heart or that each breakup hurt her as much as the first. She just showed her sister, and most people, her footloose and fancy-free side, so much so that they thought she was slutty when nothing could have been further from the truth. She was freethinking and in possession of a healthy libido, but up until she’d been introduced to this situation with Thayne and Cade, she would have said she had her limits.